Arsene Wenger made the extraordinary claim that Arsenal are unprepared for the season just seven days after insisting his team were ‘physically ready’.

The Arsenal manager left out three regular starters for the opening game against Liverpool — Mesut Ozil, Olivier Giroud and Laurent Koscielny, who all only returned to training last week after appearing at the latter stages of Euro 2016.

Alexis Sanchez and Aaron Ramsey — who limped off with a hamstring injury — did start the game despite having had just two weeks of pre-season training. Alex Iwobi also limped off with a thigh injury.

Arsene Wenger vents his frustration towards a fourth official as the Gunners went 4-1 down

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Speaking last Sunday after their friendly win over Manchester City in Gothenburg, Wenger said: ‘I feel we could see we played together for a while, physically we look ready.’

But the Arsenal boss changed his mind after watching his team lose for the third time in four opening-day matches, saying: ‘We are not ready physically. You are in a catch-22 situation with the Euros — whether you give the players a rest who need it.

‘They are not ready to play this sort of game and get injured, like Ramsey, or you give them a rest and not have them for the start.

It's all too much for some of the home fans as Arsenal suffered an opening fixture defeat

‘When will we be ready? I don’t know. We have to be ready next week because we go to Leicester.’

He said: ‘I made a big mistake. There was still half an hour to go. If you celebrate too early, life gives you a knock.’

Arsenal centre back Calum Chambers is sent crashing to the ground after a clearance

Liverpool midfielder Lallana also believes his side need to improve, despite their victory.

'(It was) very entertaining,' he said. 'We started the game not so brightly after we thought we had quite a good pre-season but it's always difficult coming to Arsenal.

'The manager had a few words for us at half-time and I thought we came out brilliantly. Football being football, we maybe got a bit complacent at 4-1 but saw it out at the end.

Sadio Mane (right) fires in this unstoppable shot into the roof of Arsenal's net

'Arsenal are a top team, we've got a few new players in our squad, still gelling together and if we want to achieve something special this year we're going to have to be more disciplined defensively as a unit.

'I'm sure it was great for the neutral and the punters and it's a great three points for us.'

Rob Holding (left), a summer signing from Bolton, clears on his Premier League debut